A Few New Details On Valkyria Chronicles 3

Yesterday, SEGA held a Valkyria Chronicles 3 event that in Japan that allowed the Japanese press to take an early look at the game’s official demo, due for release on the PlayStation Network next week. You can view photos of the event here.

An initial presentation by producer, Shinji Motoyama, and director, Takeshi Ozawa, was followed by three rounds of Q&A, with questions from the audience, the Internet, and those following SEGA’s Valkyria Chronicles 3 Twitter feed.

Kurt Irving, protagonist:

The Q&A began with someone asking a question about Kurt Irving, the protagonist of Valkyria Chronicles 3. Kurt is part of the game’s "Nameless" squad, a unit that performs “off-the-record” operations that the Gallian army cannot. Members of the Nameless — or Squad 422 — are referred to by number, rather than name.

We don’t know why Kurt is part of the Nameless, but we do know he wants out. Ozawa revealed that he’s cool-headed but at the same time, he has the feel of an ideologist. Kurt is a man of strong principles.

Multiple endings:

Another question involved someone asking whether or not Valkyria Chronicles 3 would feature multiple endings. This question was dodged without a definitive yes or no.

Instead, Motoyama jokingly replied that the development team isn’t trying to create a dating-sim. Rather, they’re trying to add an element of human relationships to the Valkyria series.

The Gassenarl family:

This one’s a tiny bit of a spoiler, so you can skip it if you don’t want plot teasers. The Gassenarl family were the ones that led the Gallian Revolutionary Army in Valkyria Chronicles 2. A follower on Twitter asked if they would make a return in VC3, which takes place before the second game.

To this, producer, Motoyama, replied that while Valkyria Chronicles 3’s story stands by itself, we’ll see stepping stones leading up to the Gassenarl family’s warped ideals. He didn’t specify details, however.

Save data from Valkyria 1 and 2:

Valkyria Chronicles 3 can import save data not only from Valkyria Chronicles 2, but also from the first game on PlayStation 3, like VC2 could to unlock Isara.

Additionally, the retail game can also import save data from the demo, so don’t delete any of your save files.

Why no PlayStation 3?

Something that comes up often is the subject of the PlayStation 3 and why SEGA aren’t making another Valkyria Chronicles game for it. This question was also asked at the event.

Motoyama revealed he is personally aware of the hardware decisions made for the game. Since the first game was on PS3, it’s only natural for people to speak up for sequels on the same platform. Platform selection is done with utmost care each time.

Motoyama says that people assume since Valkyria 1 was on the PS3, it would be easy to use the engine and assets to develop another PS3 game. However, with respect to capacity, he says, development is absolutely not like that.

He believes the method for Valkyria Chronicles development is to bring the game to the most optimum platform at the time, and to look beyond when producing a new game after that.

Miscellaneous:

You can switch between Easy and Normal modes during the game. However, you can’t switch between the two during battles.

Valkyria 3 doesn’t have a "Hard" mode. However, it does have hard missions you can play.

You’ll be able to perform an 800 MB data install for Valkyria 3. This is highly recommended as it cuts down on load times.

Someone from the net asked if there’s going to be a tie-up for Alica — who owns a bakery — and her special bread with a convenience store in Japan. Ozawa gave him the usual reply: he wants one, but it would need to be handled carefully.

In Japan it’s easily outselling the console and costs less to produce. That’s basically win/win

joesz

well,if I have to choose between changing valkyria chronicles onto the playstation 3 again or playing a new valkyria yearly,I would choose the second option.we are having valkyria chronicles 3 soon and still no final fantasy 13 versus that I watched the trailer 5 millenias ago

Yearly releases of the game? No, that will cause series fatigue, like Mario, the game would just become boring, no matter how innovative they try to make it.

FF 13 Versus, I thought was on track to come out by March 2011?

nyoron

I think we’re on track to get some new screens, maybe a new trailer by March 2011.

Joanna

So Mario has series fatigue but not Final Fantasy? Covering up your disdain for one series with the flaws in shares with another is a big NO. It makes you look hypocritical and like a raging thoughtless fan. If you don’t like Mario, that fine, but don’t start slinging mud all over it because of that.

The issue with Final Fantasy is the fact that each or at least every set of two or three, in my glance of the series is kind of drastic from the ones before it.

Like the set of Ivalice games, and now the set of Fabula Nova Crystallis(sp?). Final Fantasy Tactics is vastly different then mothership Final Fantasy games that seem to be drastic from Final Fantasy Dissidia than Final Fantasy Legends…

Mario 64 is drastically different than Mario Kart, than Mario Sports games than Paper Mario than Mario and Luigi than Mario Minis. Mario mainline at its core has experience fatigue. SMG in just two years?! Mario at its core has not changed at all, even New Super Mario Bros…which fortunately finally embraced adding some sort of tangible quality co-op multiplayer in the games series after of so long.

Joanna

New Super Mario Bros. and New Super Mario Bros. Wii are both reboots, so obviously they will try to bring back the feel of SMB1-3. I would compare it to the cell phone game, Final Fantasy Legends, which looks like a SNES FF game and 4 Warriors of Light, which is reminiscent of old school RPGs. So again, you are overlooking the same “flaws” you see in one series that it shares with another.

Furthermore, just as you yourself stated, Mario has as many branch offs and distinct gameplay styles as FF, so I just don’t see how you can say one has franchise fatigue but not the other.

As for there being two Galaxy games, I think that the reason is because Wii needs the games. Nintendo being a console marker is in an entirely different boat than SE, which can take all the time in the world to make their FF games. But even with their different circumstances, Sqauresoft/SE did not hesitate to release FF III-V and FF VIII-XI in quick succession (i.e. a core FF game every year, and that’s not including spin offs like Tactics and Crystal Chronicles).

Look, it’s fine if you like FF and dislike Mario, but understand, there are people who actually like Mario. So maybe to you there are too many Mario games, but someone else may feel exactly the same about FF. For the record, I love both series and don’t think FF or Mario franchise fatigued.

A series has fatigue when the core gameplay remains unchanged or when they change it they throw out sequels left and right. Mario for example, Super Mario Galaxy and then Galaxy 2…what was changed? What was changed from Mario 64 to Mario Sunshine? In both cases there were no major changes, which shows fatigue or they ran out of ideas.

Final Fantasy at least changes up the story, the battle system, and even the characters. Mario…well Rosalina was the newest introduction…otherwise same ole same ole. Same ole story of princess peach.

Joanna

I cannot believe you are harping on Mario having the same old gameplay yet saying it’s fine for FF because the story is new with each instalment. FF IV-IX had the same core battle system, ATB, give or take a few little changes to customization and summons.

You do understand that saying Mario needs a story is like saying FF needs to become even more westernized. The light story is part of the Mario charm, Mario never was and hopefully never will be about story but good old gameplay. Just like what makes FF special for most gamers here is how Japanese it is, changing that, would destroy FF (some would argue that since XI that has been slowly happening, but I digress).

As for what is different about Sunshine and 64. I can’t say since I never owned a Gamecube. But you ask a valid question, what changes in Mario? What makes it worthwhile to pick up each new game? It is the different ‘levels’ that each game brings to the table and those levels change how you play each Mario game. What matters to people who play Mario and what differentiates each Mario is the level designs and power-ups.

It may be hard to understand why something like that would matter if you don’t like platformers, but it does and it is more than enough to warrant purchasing another game.

So you are saying that you and others could not embrace any change in Mario and would immediately count as impossible and unplayable? I do not see how including a bit more reliance on story or even just changing the equation of Mario up in which we arent solely going after Princess Peach for the umpteenth time, would damage the image of Mario. He cant do something different for a change? I do not see what would make it something difficult to embrace…Zelda’s story changed…no one complained about that, FF story’s changed, no ones complained about that.

I do not think levels is as tantamount as you make it seem, why play a game if there is no incentive to get through the levels. We already see stats that show that people do not even get through a game, so in marios case, 180+ stars is like essentially 180 possible new levels and such and people get through not even half of the game, so therefore, people araent concerned about playing “different” levels and being excited about them as much as you claim. Gamers are showing that they are getting tired of Mario and the same old formula. Similarly why else are they not even considering releasing a 3DS remake of Super Mario Sunshine, I think even Nintendo knows the series is facing fatigue.

Joanna

Maybe the analogy I used doesn’t hold too well because one is superficial (story) and the other not (gameplay). But my point was, people like these franchises for certain reasons. So to you what may seem as a quick rehash because the story remains the same, may in fact be quite fulfilling and maybe even revolutionary to another.

As an aside, I think the genre also plays a critical role since RPG, like the name suggests, is about immersing the player in the world and story is a great way to do it. Platformers are more about getting the player to react to the world via avoiding enemies and pit falls.

“I do not think levels is as tantamount as you make it seem, why play a game if there is no incentive to get through the levels.”

I believe this came up before. For some people, the challenge and fun of the level designs are enough. It’s enough for me and it’s probably enough for people who continue to play Mario. If you cannot understand why, I can’t really help you, but don’t assume others don’t.

Where are you getting these facts that people are not finishing the levels? You not finishing and getting excited about them does not equal that other people are not.

“Gamers are showing that they are getting tired of Mario and the same old formula. Similarly why else are they not even considering releasing a 3DS remake of Super Mario Sunshine, I think even Nintendo knows the series is facing fatigue. ”

Yeah, that’s why Mario games continue to sell millions worldwide. >__>
And how can you conclude that? There could be a number of reasons: they released 64 on DS so this time it’s a Zelda port, they don’t want the 3DS to be overflowing with ports, 3DS’s hardware isn’t quite up to Gamecube and therefore a port would not be viable, etc etc. Any of these could be the reason and not “Mario fatigue” as you claim.

godmars

So you’d rather they exhaust the franchise than put some effort and thought into it?

joesz

well,they released 1 and then 2 very quickly after a year and now this is coming very soon,so they basically released 3 valkyria in 3 years.and I bet it will be better then most of the already released games.I think they are creative people that can come up with great ideas in a short time.If you have already played the 2nd valkyria on the psp,you will realize that they can make a good valkyria chronicles even on the ds.

SlashZaku

“can make a good valkyria chronicles even on the ds.”

I don’t think they should ‘fragment’ the series any more than it already is. That’s just going to piss off fans more. If it’s in the family (PS3-PSP or Wii-DS), fine, but stop jumping around with this stuff. I’d imagine their next handheld venture would be on PSP2 anyways.

kactaplb

Gameplay wise, vc2 was superior in every. single. way. to the first. Wish people would actually play the sequel before they start trolling.

If nothing else, think of the psp games as a testing ground for the ps3 mechanics. I’m certain we will see another vc game for the ps3.

godmars

Not trolling, just saying I’d like to see more aspects of the VC universe. A game with similar themes only navy and airforce.

So basically you see this as Advanced Wars for Sony platforms? I don’t think I’ve seen any actually compare the two honestly though I find that it fits somewhat. We need a strategy RPG game for Sony and I do agree that they need to add more to it. Maybe they will for a PS3 version to handle all that extra stuff. :I Full battlefields that require land, sea, and air would be insane, even to the point the that they could work out a Co-Op online mode to have players focus duties on 1 of the 3.

godmars

No, I wanted one VC to cover troops and tanks, land battles, a second game for air and third for water since there’s suppose to be three Valkyries.

“He believes the method for Valkyria Chronicles development is to bring the game to the most optimum platform at the time, and to look beyond when producing a new game after that.”

So in short, PSP is the choice because its just much cheaper to develop for.

Jirin

It’s kind of obnoxious to develop sequels on a platform fans of the original don’t have access to. And one where you have to scale back the combat to make it function on the platform. (And one on a tiny screen with uncomfortable controls.)

But they may lose around 30% or more of those sales in piracy, so i dont think it is THAAAT good business decision (i dont care either way, of course i prefer ps3, but i love psp), of course, the game is cheaper to make on the psp

Verily, if a game is good enough and high quality, then the high numbers of sales will overpower the effect that piracy could have. The best games are those are high quality that people will pirate* and end up going out to buy after playing naught but a few minutes on it. If they were making a truly high quality highly sought after game then they should not care too much about piracy…

pirates are the scum of the capitalist world and thwart all that aids the video game economy, it is a dog eat dog world, so I do not condone piracy…

High quality means nothing in this world. It’s why God Hand and Tim Schafer’s games sold terribly. It’s why so many good games out there have sold little to no copies. Marketing and public awareness sells games these days. If you think “Good games get you good sales” then you are oh so very wrong.

kupomogli

What Firo_Prochainezo said is fact.

God Hand is easily the best in its genre and received some extremely poor sales. It pays tribute to an amazing series which has had a recent garbage released game, yet both good marketing and name recognition and this new game has sold more in one week than God Hand has in its entire lifetime.

PSP games get hit much harder due to the fact of how many people have a downgraded system. People might say, but if the game is good then people will buy it. That’s not true at all. Some people may actually be that way, but guaranteed that most aren’t.

Valkyria Chronicles hit 500k in the US, while after a year the PSP version may be a little over 100k if that.

If a publisher fails at marketing, than there should be enough positive word of mouth to spread the game to be and then making them buy it. Is that what happened with the first Valkyria Chronicles? It was up to the fans to spread the word? I think the same thing happened with Demon’s Souls, they didnt seem to spend an inordinate amount of money on advertising that game and it sold, Im guessing, that companies highest number of units to date. So in these two instances good games caused good word of mouth to get good game sales.

High quality has nothing to do with it… if people can do it, belive me, they will do it :P.The ps3 still has been unbreakeable (there are some stuff on the net, but is more trouble that is worth) besides, all the online stuff makes people to not want to pirate ps3. So thats why all the gains in ps3 would be 100%, and belive me, piracy really can hit some companies.

About your last post…Yeah sure, talk about super famous games. That will make your “argument valid”… Sims and pokemon lol… I know people that can pirate DS games and they still buy both pokemon’s versions, and Sims 3, besides being multiplataform… we are talking about Sims 3 lol, even my 50 years old aunt play The Sims.

Btw, i dont consider pokemon black/white high quality either. Cant talk about sims because i havent played it

Why dont you talk about the latest PSP games? i cant imagine how much XSEED and NISA could had gotten for their great releases, if it wasnt because of pirates.

Fine, PSP games…well Atlus seems to have had resounding success with Persona 3 Portable and Persona 1 Portable, so I highly doubt they are complaining about some lost sales potential from pirates with those two titles. Wasnt NIS ecstatic about the high sales of the Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness, and Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days…doubtful they are complaining about lost sales in that regard. If the PSP was truly a wasteland of rampant piracy than companies would have brought over 180 titles to the PSP in this year through half of next year.

The Sims series has a special place in my heart, definitely my favorite PS3 game thus far this year (Sims 3), how can you have never played Sims 3?! Truly you are missing out on the premiere life simulation series.

Oh and also, I had to change avatars, I choose ones based on my expression that I have when I read and respond to posts; I think the Natsu one made me look excessively jovial and deceptive, while this one shows that Im smug and oh so cool.

Tom_Phoenix

Actually, it does make his argument valid. These games didn’t become “super famous” out of the blue. Infact, most of the game series we consider “famous” nowadays generally had little to no hype behind them when they originally arrived on the market. That still didn’t stop them from selling like hotcakes thanks to positive word of mouth. Even Sims and Pokémon were not guaruanteed to be a success by any means.

Ultimately, what you or I consider quality is entirely irrelevant. It doesn’t matter how much a certain game is praised by the media. In the end, the only real proof whether or not the game is considered quality is whether or not people are willing to vote for that title with their wallets. The fact that you know people who bought Pokémon titles in spite of pirating them only serves to prove that point.

Also, I fail to see how the fact that your 50-year old aunt plays Sims is relevant to this discussion. If anything, the fact that she was willing to purchase a title in spite of not usually playing games (at least, I assume that to be the case; otherwise, there would be no point in mentioning it) only goes to prove that The Sims is a quality title.

Come on. You can’t honestly believe that piracy doesn’t destroy potential sales for a lot of games. Quality has absolutely zero to do with it.

Tom_Phoenix

What other measure of quality is there other than sales? I am not saying piracy has no effect on sales. However, if a game is of high quality, it should be able to sell a ton regardless of piracy. Even members of pirate groups purchase games they enjoy and scold their peers that don’t do so.

Nowadays, piracy has become a way too frequent scapegoat for companies. They aren’t willing to admit to themselves that their games aren’t very good, so they resort to pointing out various other factors. But that explanation only works to a degree. Afterall, if a title is of high quality, it should be able to convince people to part with ther money. If it doesn’t, then it isn’t a high quality title.

Here’s a chart Siliconera posted based on a study that was done with piracy. Dissidia and Phantasy Star Portable 2 are subjective to being good games, but I’m sure most would consider them to be good games.This was posted five months ago and sales charts have only changed 90,000 for Dissidia(including Universal Tuning which is Japan’s rerelease) and 40,000 for PSP2. This was also before the US release of PSP2 so who knows what kind of numbers in piracy that’s received as of late.Even if the piracy numbers remain the same and you add the increased sales, Dissidia was pirated 2.75 more times than it was purchased and PSP2 was pirated 7.30 more times than it was purchased. With Dissidia it doesn’t count the people who pirated both the US and Japanese versions, but it also doesn’t count those who downloaded it and then multiple others who may have transfered it from one computer, so the number of pirated copies could technically be much larger. http://storage.siliconera.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/comparison_chart.jpgAnother example is GTA Liberty City Stories, GTA Vice City Stories, and GTA Chinatown Wars. Based on sales for all regions, LCS PSP has 6.22 million, VCS has 3.81 million, and Chinatown Wars has under a million. Chinatown Wars on both DS and PSP put together received 1.11 million. On the DS it’s a far less graphically advanced system as well as one aimed towards children and casual gamers, but on the PSP you wonder why it didn’t sell more, especially along the lines of selling as much or atleast reaching half as much as VCS did. The game while being a top down GTA game had high reviews literally everywhere and unlike the other two GTA titles, it was actually a fairly good game and didn’t get its good ratings based on what is more than likely a payoff.

It may be because people just weren’t interested in the top down view that Chinatown Wars had so other than looking up piracy figures which wouldn’t know where to start it’s only speculation.

It’s not really any use arguing though. People who don’t want to believe piracy isn’t as large as it is won’t believe it no matter what.

Dissidia still sold more than 1.8 mln units, a sequel is coming, so it had to have been extremely profitable, even if there were a recorded 5.2mln illegal downloads. The PSP2 number is the most intriguing figure, however 600K units of any game is an outstanding number so maybe it or maybe it didnt cut into expected profits for the title?

Wasnt Chinatown Wars a port of the DS game and a port of the iPad version? I think the people who were interested in it, already had it on the DS and didnt want to buy it again.

But like I said in the beginning…a good game would have high enough sales to overcome the effect of piracy, we can see examples in the realm of PC games, or those DS games.

kupomogli

About Chinatown Wars. The PSP and DS version combined have 1.11 million sales over all regions. Not even a third the amount of PSP only sales that VCS had. The DS is aimed towards both casual gamers and a younger audience. Now we know that a lot of non casual gamers own a DS, but the main group of people won’t say, hey, it’s a GTA, let’s buy it. It’d be nice if we knew how many times it was pirated though.Also. the ipad version of Chinatown Wars came out after the PSP version. How many people do you know own an overpriced ipad? I know zero people who own an ipad.Other than that, just because video game companies made profit regardless the fact that their games were pirated considerable amounts doesn’t matter. You said if the game is good then people will buy it, but now once I throw some numbers out there, and again, not counting any more pirated numbers but the up to date sales numbers, then you change your argument to the fact that “Dissidia is getting a sequel so they must have had a good profit.” Again, it doesn’t matter they’re making a sequel, they’ve still potentially lost millions of dollars that they should have gained otherwise.

I didnt change my stance. The numbers you show just basically says, this is how many times it was downloaded, not “this is how much sales potential was lost with the title.” What makes it different than saying the PSP has a 45 mln user base, and the game could only attain sales of 600,000 so therefore 44.4 mln sales unit sales were lost with the title since it failed to grasp the money of everyone. What makes it different than providing numbers for how many times people download a games demo versus how many people went to buy the game. I think the same conclusions you make could just as well be gleamed from demo numbers.

It reminds me of the claim movie companies are trying to make in saying that pirating movies by watching recording that people made in theaters or something, is stealing their sales. If the movie was good enough…then people would see it in the theaters. If the movie was bad…well the only thing the company is losing is bad rep from the person, who would have paid and saw the movie and claimed to their friends that it was bad and they shouldnt watch it, thus causing more lose of sales from doing it the “legal” way.

Piracy just provides an excuse for companies to make when bad games get low sales. If consumer doesnt know product is bad, then they will buy it and be angered. If consumer knows product is bad from some alterior means of play, then consumer will avoid the bad game. If consumer knows product is good, then consumer will buy it and be happy. If consumer knows product is good from alterior means, then consumer will buy the game.

The only case in which I see a potential for sales loss…is if consumer is economically challenged and says “I would buy the game if I had the money but I can download it and play it…and when I get the game I will buy it.” I have great difficulty believing that the people who pirate a good game, will not buy the game if they have a job and are able to spend money on entertainment. Surely, they would have the sense to know that they want to buy the game to at least support the company?

I will go back to the case of the DS sales…over 115 DS games with over 1 mln unit sales, and people claim the DS is ripe with piracy. Are the companies who have over 1 mln unit sales of their games truly being that affected by piracy with those games? Are pc companies who have games sell multimillions really complaining about lose of sales due to piracy?

If they truly didnt want their games pirated so much and are truly afraid of lost sales, then they should wisen up, release the highest quality and caliber of game, and take a good hard look at their competitors games that have so many sales and try to replicate that success.

Really it isnt truly like all 4mln illegal downloaders of P2P were even going to buy the game in the firstplace, let alone, if they liked it, to avoid buying it after downloading it. Why wont companies release demos to thrwat the probelm so then they can truly compare numbers of people who downloaded demo, versus number of people who bought the final game, versus number of illegal download.

Tom_Phoenix

Even if we take that statement for granted, it is still offset by the fact that the PSP’s installer base is much, much larger compared to that of the PS3 in Japan. So even with piracy, it makes much more business sense to develop games for the Japanese market on handhelds.

Jirin

First off, that depends. I’m not aware how well VC2 sold, but I bet a lot of people were put off by the kiddy dialog. Somebody who started the series with VC1 is more likely to want to continue the series than someone who started with VC2.

Second, it’s going to hurt their sales long term if they don’t have fan loyalty. It’s like what Tales did in the US. They put Symphonia on Gamecube, pissing off the Destiny and Eternia fans. Then they put Abyss on PS2, pissing off Symphonia fans. Don’t you think Tales would be selling better in the US if they stuck to one system and built up a more loyal fan base, instead of deliberately alienating them by hopping around platforms and being inconsistent about localization? You don’t increase your sales by withholding your games from the people most excited about them.

Third, let’s say it is a good business decision to put a VC game on PSP. Why not make it a spinoff instead of a sequel? Nobody is mad about Devil Survivor and Strange Journey being on DS, but you bet a lot of people will be pissed if Persona 5 is.

I think the initial decision of going to the PSP is the mistake here…though I guess at the time (2008-9) it was in its peak year of sales, so it made more sense to go there if they didnt want a repeat of slow but accumulating sales on the PS3 (or an increase in profit margin).

Im of the opinion that all third party games should at least be multiplatform, so then there is no chance for lose or failure to attain a fanbase. Timed exclusives are always, in my opinion bad and cripple the fan base.

A spinoff, falls into the other category that I hate…games that aid to dilute and cause a franchise to fatigue faster. If they said its a spinoff…then people from VC1, wouldnt have had an urging to even get it, unless they were diehard fans, and how would they market it to newcomers to the series who werent fortunate to buy a PS3?

Joanna

“how would they market it to newcomers to the series who werent fortunate to buy a PS3?”

But you could say the same for a sequel. Actually, it would be much worse for a sequel because there is a number in front of it and usually the story continues, whereas a spin-off is usually a side story that is irrelevant to the main series’ own story.

Joanna

I much prefer handhelds and I haven’t played any VC (shame on me, I know) but I do have to agree with your point on console hopping. I dislike it a lot as well, especially if the hopping happens in the same generation, like it has happened here. I’m more forgiving if it happens in a new gen (i.e. – PS2 title released on PSP) since it is sort of like a fresh new start. I try not to get too emotional with the whole fandom and console wars, but when a series hops, especially to a system I don’t own, it really does feel like a slap in the face.

i don;t agree i think they should do whats best for the company they never released the first thinking fans in mind so i don;t think they should start now if your a fan then u would simple buy the psp the ps3 is a big software and it isn;t easy to produce a game like that it takes awfully alot of time and effort i think the psp is fine

*sigh* I don’t own a PSP nor do I want one and Valkyria Chronicles was one of the main reason’s I bought a PS3 that didn’t fail to live up to my expectation’s. This is very very upsetting.

joesz

that’s how we first felt when we heard the news.But If you get the chance to play the 2nd installment you’ll be amazed.and I don’t blame you,people intend to hate portable consoles for their deficiency and stuff.

Chiupon

it’s funny how they keep making male protagonists, even though (In Japan, at least) the only characters with a recognizable fanbase are the female characters. Never even played Valkyria, and I know that Alicia and Edy are apparently immensely popular in the fandom.

Joanna

Me thinks an analogy to dating sims should clear things up: basically like in the dating sim, the male is suppose to represent the presumably male player. He is the avatar for the male player and like-wise why the heroes in the vast majority of games have the exact same personality. Extending the analogy, just like in dating sims where the male avatar is just there for immersion with the famale characters and as such, the player gets attached to the female characters and not their own avatar, so too can the hero in RPGs be seen as simply a tool to experience the other characters, most prominantly seen here as two females, and the world. Taken as such, it is not unusual that the main character continues to be male while the fandom favours female characters. That and I think each sex tends to idolize the other a bit more- fangirls of male characters in anime and manga and gay shippings for example.

Guest

The PSP sells very well in Japan, in america sometimes the ps2 sells better. The priority for japanese companies these days is the handheld market in Japan. You can all thank sony for overpricing their damn black beast of a console so much when the first VC was released for it.

When VC came out sony was still not releasing the slim model, still not cutting the price.

HarryHodd

In hope they bring this back to the PS3. I don’t buy thier excuses. It’s obvious that it costs less to produce on the psp since they can do it in one year. However the PS3 has grown much since the first one and VC1 is still regarded as one of the best games on the system.

I still want another VC on the PS3 so that I can watch those HD cutscenes on a nice big TV, but if they carry on creating unique stories for each iteration then I’m not too bothered what platform it’s on. I was disappointed VC2 went to the PSP and extremely annoyed when they announced that VC3 was for the PSP aswell, but after playing the second for nearly 64 hours I can’t not say it’s a fantastic game. Yeah the credits system/distribution are a massive headache and the dialogue at times is cringe worthy, it’s still a great game.
I’m just hoping that there’s a small team in the company tinkering with the PS3 seeing what they can make so that in a years time they’ll announce a 4th game for the PS3 with some drastic and amazing changes.

kupomogli

PSP Component cables. ^_^

WonderSteve

I tried it…it doesn’t look pretty in my opinion…

nyoron

That’s far from an ideal solution. Unless you have a Go (who has a Go?), instead of a DS3 you’re still stuck controlling it on the cramped PSP, except now it’s tethered to your TV as well. Plus the gigantic black border around the entire screen since the PSP only outputs games at 480×272. And you can’t use the cables at all if you have a PSP-1000.

The real solution would be a PSP emulator for PS3, but Sony doesn’t seem to have any intention of doing that.

Personally, I find his attitude towards a PS3 version insulting, especially considering how much PS3 owners spread the word about this game. I personally bought five copies. Four of them as gifts. But whatever, I’ve stopped caring about this franchise. It feels like an ex-girlfriend who I had a particularly bad split with who insists on announcing who her new boyfriend is or whatever. Valkyria Chronicles, until it returns to the proper system, is dead to me.

Gestahl

Well said.

JustaGenericUser

Oh brohter. We’ll never get a PS3 release, will we?

Anyway, love the way he dodged the multiple endings question. That means there’s more than one ending, otherwise he wouldn’t feel the need to go, “Look, shiny!” at us, nor imply that we think it’s a dating-sim when he should know better.

Tom_Phoenix

I think the main reason why this title (among others) has switched to handhelds, besides lower production costs, is beacuse the Japanese gaming market in general has shifted towards handheld consoles. Nowadays, there appears to be a greater emphasis on gaming devices that can be used both at home and on the go instead of being just restricted to home entertainment. The numbers really tell the entire story….in Japan, the PSP installer base is three times larger than that of the PS3. The fact that the PS3 is notorious for being hard to develop for doesn’t help either.

While I can understand that this is upsetting to console owners, it is something they will have to get used to…..beacuse I fully expect more and more major Japanese titles to shift to handhelds. The only franchises which I expect will stick primarily to consoles are the ones that also have a large Western audience, since consoles are much more prevalent there due to the emphasis on home entertainment.

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